While many Americans are familiar with black slavery in the South during the 19th Century and its role in igniting the nation’s great Civil War, less attention has been paid to the black experience in northern cities such as New York, where so-called “freedmen” lived.

Now, a new book, “Black Gotham,” by University of Maryland Professor Carla Peterson, shines a light on their remarkable stories.

Much of the history of black 19th-Century New York has been lost, in part because it was eclipsed in the popular imagination by the saga of southern slavery. Additionally, mostly-white academic historians minimized the contributions of African-Americans. And no comprehensive archive of black life existed until the 20th Century, when the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture was established.

Peterson’s ancestors were distinguished members of the city’s black elite and she felt theirs was a powerful story that needed to be told. She spent 11 years researching and writing her book.

John T. Consoli’Black Gotham’ author Carla Peterson

“Writing this book was very important to me,” says Peterson. “It was a journey of hard work, but also of love and passion.”

Led by free blacks such as clergyman Alexander Crummell, newspaper editor Charles Ray and businessman George Downing, members of New York’s black elite tried to establish themselves as full Americans, not merely as “Africans” or “coloreds” as black slaves had once been called and called themselves.

Like members of outsider groups before and since, this African-American elite considered education to be the key to full citizenship. They also embraced values of character and responsibility.

“A good, upright moral citizen, valuing temperance, a Protestant ethic of hard work, sobriety and all those kinds of inner values. Respectability then is the outward manifestation of character,” says Peterson. “It’s in your appearance, how you dress, how you comport yourself, especially when you’re out on the streets of New York, and especially with whites. No loud, boisterous behavior but being utterly respectable and respectful.”

‘Black Gotham’ explores the history and contributions of New York’s black elite during the 19th Century.

That didn’t mean the status quo went unchallenged. Peterson’s book describes salon-style meetings in the back of James McCune Smith’s pharmacy. Smith, who was one of antebellum New York’s most important black leaders, hosted lively debates about voting rights for blacks and the abolition of slavery.

Alliances with whites were often forged. And like white New Yorkers, many in “Black Gotham” also wanted to be rich – but success could be fleeting.

“You see black New Yorkers make tremendous gains and then lose. Gains in terms of entrepreneurship, finding a trade, finding a profession, setting down roots, buying property, and feeling they were at last becoming a genuine part of city life. They would refer to ‘color-phobia’ as ‘fast disappearing in our city.’ But then there would be a loss.”

Racial violence was also an issue. Peterson cites a riot in 1834, which began in a chapel where both black and white choirs were scheduled to rehearse at the same time.

“And the white choir went nuts. It was only a pretext, but a race riot broke out, and a lot of black property was damaged. Saint Philip’s Episcopal Church, which was the church of my family, was desecrated.”  

The Draft Riots of July 1863, during the height of the Civil War, were an especially low point in the history of black New York.  When President Abraham Lincoln instituted a military draft, many immigrants, especially the Irish, thought they were being asked to fight and perhaps to die in a war being waged for the benefit of blacks. Angry mobs set out to destroy the dwellings and businesses of the city’s prosperous African-Americans.

But there was also some goodwill between the races. Peterson’s great grandfather owned a pharmacy in a largely Irish neighborhood. He was known as a kind man who gave free medicine and clothes to the poor.

“So they came to see him as a pillar of the community. So at the time of the Draft Riots he was warned to leave. A group of white merchants in the area came to him and said ‘You’d better get out. Your pharmacy is going to be attacked.’ And he said, ‘As many men who are going to come and attack me, there will be as many who come to defend me.’ And that is exactly what happened. His Irish neighbors protected his pharmacy.”

Then as now, New York was an ethnic melting pot, and Peterson says many black New Yorkers saw themselves as citizens of the world. Her own ancestors had roots in England, Haiti, Jamaica, Venezuela, American Indian territory as well as Africa.

She points out that more than a century later, many American blacks still lack the educational and economic opportunities that the mainstream enjoys. But Peterson adds that she has been gratified to learn that many black groups are inspired by the struggles and incremental successes of 19th-Century “Black Gotham.”

Many processed food products today are sweetened with high fructose corn syrup.  But concerns that corn syrup might be contributing to obesity has led many food manufacturers to turn to organic brown rice syrup, believing it to be a healthier alternative to the high fructose corn syrup.  

Now, researchers say that brown rice syrup may be an unintended source of arsenic, a highly toxic metallic element that’s been shown to increase the risk of cancer when present in drinking water.

A researcher at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences at Dartmouth University in New Hampshire, Brian Jackson, says scientists were curious about the amount of arsenic in foods consumed by babies.

“Because of their low body weight, if they are exposed to arsenic, then they are exposed to a disproportionately high exposure rate on a high kilogram body weight basis,” Jackson said.

Jackson, who led the study, and colleagues randomly purchased more than a dozen baby formulas to test them for the presence of arsenic. He says almost all the formulas contained very low or trace amounts of arsenic, including those that had rice starch.

“And then I selected two other formulas that I found in a local supermarket, brought those back to the lab, tested them and they turned out to be 20 to 30 times higher than any of the other formulas that we tested. So when we get an anomalous result like that, we retested this and got the same results again.  And at that point I turned a jar around and looked at the label and the first ingredients in that label were organic brown rice syrup,” Jackson said.

Researchers found high levels of inorganic arsenic, the most toxic form, in soy based formula.

Jackson explains that growing rice needs a mineral in soil called silica.  But Jackson says arsenic is chemically a lot like silica, and the growing rice plant takes up both silica as well as arsenic, which is also in the ground. When the rice is fermented to make organic rice syrup, Jackson says the arsenic dissolves easily in the watery brew and becomes part of the syrup.

For this reason, Jackson urges parents to read the label on baby food products and to think twice before purchasing infant foods that contain organic rice syrup.

“I would recommend that.  Obviously the amount of arsenic –  it varies in rice depending upon the cultivar of rice, where the rice is grown — so you are going to get that same variation in brown rice syrups.  It’s true that rice as a grain takes up more arsenic than other grains,” Jackson said.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued a statement saying it is not aware of any baby formulas that contain organic brown rice syrup.  An agency spokeswoman said FDA regulators are studying aresenic in all rice and rice products and could issue recalls after the report is completed later this year.

An article on arsenic concentrations in baby food and other products is published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives.

While a protest by religious leaders against last year’s botched presidential and legislative elections in the Democratic Republic of Congo has been quickly suppressed, U.S-based analysts and activists fear for the country’s future.

The Carter Center issued a statement deploring the suppression of a Thursday march in the Democratic Republic of Congo capital Kinshasa.

Priests and nuns were arrested by tear-gas wielding police, while several radio stations were reported shut down.

The march had been planned to reject results from last year’s vote, which protest organizers said in no way reflected reality or justice.

Mvemba Dizolele from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies says unfortunately international powers brushed off major problems in the run-up to the still controversial 2011 vote. These included a rule change making it a one-round contest and faulty voter rolls.

“A lot of these issues were issues that we all had flagged before that come to now bite us. So at this moment, we have a crisis where the election results were proclaimed but you have (Mr.) Kabila claiming to be the winner, you also have (Mr.) Tshisekedi claiming to be the winner,” Dizolele said.

Congo’s electoral commission declared the incumbent President Kabila the winner with nearly 49 percent of the vote to Mr. Tshisekedi’s 32 percent.

But election observers reported gross violations from ballot stuffing and suspiciously high registration in pro-Kabila areas to polling stations being burned down and security forces tying people up and voting in their place in pro-Tshisekedi areas.

In the legislative elections, more than 300 results from a new 500-seat assembly are being contested in court.  

Pro-Kabila parties have been credited with winning 341 seats to 42 for Mr. Tshisekedi’s party.

Congo expert Jason Stearns from Yale University says a best case scenario of having a revote is being dismissed.

“If you talk to diplomats, if you talk to people in Kinshasa, they look at you as if you are in la-la land if you start talking like that,” Stearns said.

But Tony Gambino from the U.S.-based advocacy group Eastern Congo Initiative says if the fraudulent election results stand, he sees many possible doomsday scenarios.

“Congo could descend into a deeper humanitarian disaster, become unstable once again affecting all of Central Africa and beyond. Surely, we do not want to see this. That is what is at stake,” Gambino said.

Gambino also points out that the International Monetary Fund and World Bank contribute about half of Congo’s budget.

“Anyone who suggests that the West has no influence, that we cannot do anything, they are just blowing smoke. It is wrong,” Gambino said.

Gambino is calling for what he calls financial consequences from international banks and donors.

He also says upcoming provincial elections should be delayed so these can be better prepared.

The United States is Congo’s largest donor country, having contributed over $900 million over the past year.  

This week, a U.S. government statement said it was still closely monitoring the electoral process and that it was deeply concerned about multiple allegations of human rights abuses by Congolese security forces.

Vijay Nambiar, special adviser to the U.N. chief on Burma, made the appeal at the end of a five-day visit during which he met key figures including President Thein Sein and main opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

A U.N. press release Friday praised the changes underway, saying they have “attained an unprecedented level of initiative.”

The statement added that health, education and job creation remain key responsibilities for both central and local authorities in order to empower people to participate fully in the country’s development and growth.

The announcement comes a day after prosecutors requested Mr. Wulff’s immunity be lifted so they could investigate whether he abused his position as governor of the state of Lower Saxony.

Wulff faces multiple allegations including allowing a film producer friend to pay for his bills from two hotel stays and accepting a large loan from a wealthy friend’s wife.

Chancellor Angela Merkel, who handpicked Mr. Wulff for the primarily ceremonial job in 2010, issued a short statement expressing what she said was ” deep regret” at the president’s resignation.

Chancellor Merkel says she wants to seek a consensus from main political parties on a new president.

She postponed a trip to Italy Friday, in anticipation of President Wulff’s resignation.

the goverment is a very tightly sealed club in which powerfull indeviduals fight for the right to lead the great nation out of its great problems right?

i highly doubt that one ,,

we are voting for a select few “party candidates”  who seam to come out of nowere with strange backgrounds, and with no real knowledge of who they are, and we as a society vote them into power! doesent this all seem a little strange to anyone else but me?

we follow their rules , and obide by their laws at all costs or we are punished, we are frown into jail and labeld a convict, when many times people were only demonstrating their right to protest against something that is wrong. the goverment has the nation wrapped round its finger, as it grows further and further into bankrupsy we as citizens pay more and more tax to fund their debts to the other nations who strangle the people for their currency.

change is needed, and needed soon

soon the pound will be worthless and people will starve and perish for the mistakes of the so called goverment that we so badly trust, they have got the world so distracted by going to work, paying bills, providing for the family, so that we dont see the big picture. that the goverment doesent want us to be free, no not at all. 

These are not the only good things that could be done, and new legislation may be introduced periodically throughout the session, but these are those most promising:

10.H.R. 106 — Public Official Accountability Act

This bill provides for an extra two year penalty for any public elected or appointed official convicted of bribery, fraud, extortion, or theft of public funds greater than $10,000, not a mandatory, just an extra tool available to the judge.

9.H.R. 61 — Coach Act of 2011

This bill is to amend title 5 of the United States Code, to require Federal employees to use coach-class air travel in the United States except in limited circumstances.

8. H.R. 54 — Stand by your Oil Pollution Act or the STOP Act.

To amend the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 to extend liability to corporations, partnerships, and other persons having ownership interests in responsible parties, make the corporations pay.

7. H.R. 47 — Classified Information Accountability Act of 2011 or CIA Act.

This is legislation to provide a civil penalty for certain misrepresentations made to Congress by a person employed by the intelligence community, a $10,000 fine to be exact.

6.H.R. 109 — To establish a national commission on presidential war powers and civil liberties.

This is a commission to investigate the broad range of executive branch national security policies undertaken since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, such as torture, wiretaps, etc, etc.

5. H.R.35 — Teacher Tax Reduction Act of 2011

Allows teachers to take a $500 larger deduction for material they buy for their classrooms, the language is not very specific, it only says the deduction is for “certain expenses of elementary and secondary school teachers”, but it’s a good start.

I would like to see it expanded to upper level education too, but for now this is pretty advantageous.

(FULL DISCLOSURE: My wife is a community college teacher and so we value education and teachers a lot here, I may be biased in liking this legislation.)

4. H.R.29 — To provide for the withdrawal of the United States from the North American Free Trade Agreement.

This one is pretty self-explanatory, if you haven’t hard about the negative effects of NAFTA, you should have. Facts like in the US alone, more than 765,000 jobs have disappeared as a result of NAFTA. When these laid off workers find new jobs, they earn 23 percent less on average than at their previous employment, NAFTA hurts everyone.

3. H.R.32 — Homeless Children and Youth Act of 2011

This bill is too amend the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act to include youths and children…not sure why the Regan era legislators left them out.

2. HR 111: Breast Cancer Patient Protection Act of 2011

This bill is to require a minimum standard of care by insurance companies for all persons with breast cancer, including extending the hospital stay to up to 48 hours if a doctor deems its needed and other benefits.

1. H.R. 36 — Eating Disorders Awareness, Prevention, and Education Act of 2011.

This bill is to raise awareness of eating disorders and to create educational programs in schools to help students learn and avoid these devastating diseases. This is not the first time that the bills sponsor, Congresswoman Judy Biggert, has done some good things with her power, as this story shows.

And one that deserves an honorable mention, and all good internet users should look up is…

H.R. 96 — Internet Freedom Act

Do you know that sickness has entered your soul? a soul  fed by fear, digestion never possible, hunger  constantly dwelling.

Do you know that you have stood still, unmoved? unmoved and, rooted in a routine that kills not only passion but buries love alive.

Know that you are free, only your mind can control you to delve in such darkness…if you let it.

Know that freedom is a thought away, only the mind can catch it, if it’s free and willing.

Your heart holds the the compass in the direction of truth, not to far away on the train of thought.

Come from beneath and uncover love through the tunnels of desperation, a violent moment of imagination casts out the demon of routine.

Allowing one to become an original not a photocopy of what has been done before but clean and innocent.

One that has not been tainted by fear or hold remembrance to the death of passion.

One who has the freedom of mind, imagination that has not been enslaved by the greys in life only coloured by the experiences.

Do you know you have forgotten your divine right? right where wrongs were unborn and beauty was the parent …remember.

The stuff everyone is talking about at the moment is nothing more than a sheet of carbon atoms arranged in a honeycomb lattice, but that simplicity of form is far from the whole story.  When you get billions of layers stacked on top of one another, what they make up are crystals of the graphite, the stuff from which pencil leads are made.

Graphene, as this so-called wonder substance has been dubbed, may be structurally simple, but this belies electronic and physical properties far beyond anything that has come before. Not only does this incredible stuff conduct electricity a million times better than copper, but it is also more transparent to visible light, more conductive, stronger and more stretchable than all other conductors in existence.

Obviously being drawn like magnets, the biggest manufacturers on earth are intrigued, Samsung having already produced television sized sheets of graphene and Rice University researchers in Texas have come up with a flexible touch-screen. An Airbus futuristic plane, featuring transparent cabin wall membranes – just imagine how passengers might react – which graphene could conceivably be used to manufacture.

The unexpected and incredible combination of conductivity, strength and transparency in a single material is what is causing such a stir, which researchers Novoselov and Geim could never have envisaged, when simple experiments to isolate graphene began in 2004.

They observed colleagues studying graphite crystals, using sticky tape to peel a top layer off, and Novoselov picked up aused piece of tape, usually thrown away, to study. Graphene was a known substance before the  Novoselov/Geim experiments, but none believed a single layer could be isolated, yet their research won them the Nobel prize.

Graphene uses are likely to be legion, from replacement of less efficient copper and gallium arsenide in the inter-connectors and transistors of integrated circuits to the notepad computer than can be rolled up like a newspaper when not in use .

A European £50m development hub has been set up, the UK government keen to find ways of linking cutting-edge science with commercial production, ensuring rapid employment of advanced technologies in everyday life.

Linking up this science with burgeoning small electronics and experimental materials companies around will help get things moving as quickly as possible, though how money will be distributed has yet to be finalized. As long as the funds serve to re-energise academic and industry relations in the UK, then the top manufacturers will want to be a part of the future development usage of this remarkable substance.

Places such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, Cambridge University and the Max Planck Institutes are all interested in the idea of a graphene research hub in the UK, the best senior scientists from around the world certain to be keen on working there

There is little doubt that graphene is the shape of things to come, and that putting money into technology is the smart move, because with technology the government is investing for the future, and and in this case a huge return is a certainty, thanks to the curiosity of those two Manchester university based scientists.

          Prof Octave C. Houdegbe, the President of the University, who has served his people meritoriously as a public servant, believes firmly that education is a librating force from poverty and ignorance, in which many Africans are perishing today. The more Africans are educated, the more they are liberated from ignorance, poverty and disease. Like St. Ferdinand the Great, of Spain who built a University to get the youths educated, Professor Houdegbe has since 1992 when the University was instituted, did not only liberate the youths from ignorance but has also given a worthwhile direction to both the youths and adults of African descent. Of course, students from Asia, Middle-East and other parts of the world are also many in the University, all seeking Socrates wisdom and intellectuality.

The faculties are varied and the departments numerous while the academic standard is high. The faculty of Medicine is enlarged to include Environment Health which stands as one of the largest in West Africa. It is elating to see various governments in Nigeria and elsewhere in Africa training their numerous environmental and community health workers in various aspects of primary health in the University. This is a course which is scarce or completely non-existence in other universities including those in Nigeria. It is taking the bull by the horn. For a long time, most medical institutions have pretended to tackling primary health-care while allowing polio, malaria and various other controllable diseases ravage our people without anyone raising an eye-brow.

At  this point in time, a degree in Environmental Health is relevant at the grassroots level, and as many people as can achieve the degree, the better for our rural environment. What else? Houdegbe North American University is providing for over five thousand Health workers who have come from various parts of Africa, especially Nigeria, its nearest neighbor, to avail themselves of the opportunity. This is a feat the young University has achieved.

          It is incredible, though true, that many rural dwellers today still disappear into the bush, at the site of a health worker coming with vaccination equipment. Many believe that vaccination, whatever the type it may be, is deadly, as well as making children impotent for life, or leaving in them permanent disabilities. These fears, though unfounded, are constant and permanent nightmares still with our people in the rural areas. This is why many of our health-workers, majority of who are intellectually deficient find it difficult to convince the natives. By extension, our city dwellers, though may be well informed, are still indifferent to the issue of vaccinations and primary health-care generally.

The people need their indigenes who are well grounded academically and professionally—-people who would be able to build the needed confidence in them, and perhaps alley their fears that vaccinations after all, are not as dangerous as they have imagined. These are the thousands of undergraduates, part-time and full-time alike, from various States and local government areas in Nigeria, studying to obtain degrees in Houdegbe North American University, Benin Republic. Apart from the University at Owerri Nigeria, this writer was informed that no other University in Nigeria offers Environmental Health at Degree Level. This is where I have to duff my hat for Houdegbe North American University, for including Environmental Health in its University Curriculum. The majority of our people live in the rural areas, a people who may not have direct access to standard medical care. Even if such access is available, how much has an impoverished rural dweller, to pay the very high medical bills prevailing in African countries? Highly qualified health personnel sent to the rural areas to work means bringing health nearer to the people and whoever is able to achieve this is the best friend of the rural dwellers.

          In spite of the concerted efforts by individuals and some state governments in Nigeria especially the northern Nigeria, to avail themselves of the rare opportunity to obtain a university degree in Environment Health, Lagos State of Nigeria places premium on locally trained health workers with lower certificates. What seriousness would a potential graduate in Environmental Health show when he/she knows that going back to Nigeria, a public health worker with a lower certificate in community health would be placed on a much higher grade in the service than himself?  A group of private part-time students in the services of the Lagos State Health Ministry, who concluded their final year degree examinations last week in Environmental Health from Houdegbe North American University, told me about the number of officers in the public health service who have fallen victims of this strange phenomenon of academic discrimination. Could it have been different if the degree had come from a Nigerian University? Gone are the days when Nigeria look at degrees from the USA and Russia with scorn. Graduates from these countries today hold, the economy of the Nigerian nation. However I believe strongly that there must have been some misinformation somewhere, to some states in Nigeria about Houdegbe North American University, Benin.

However, I am glad to note that the university is fully recognized by the Nigerian University Commission (NUC) and that the graduates from it serve the National Youth Service Corp, and struggle in the same market-place with the graduates from Nigerian Universities, all building up her economy. We have no choice than to recognize and accept our part-time graduates on Environmental Health, from Houdegbe North American University in the Republic of Benin, our nearest neighbor. These highly professional graduates are one and the same, with the community which they live and are in the position to understand the health problems of the grassroots population and how best to handle them.

The writer who feels bad that not many Universities offer Environmental Health at degree level, extols the courage of Houdegbe North American University, Benin Republic, in offering the course while urging the Lagos State Health Ministry to give adequate recognition and acceptability to graduates of Environmental Health from the University